Preface
The COVID-19 pandemic has been exacerbated by incomplete and opaque data supporting suspect analytics, economic turbulence despite trillions of dollars spent in overly generalized financial interventions, and civil unrest from years of ineffective blanket policy decisions. The ability to uncover and leverage the nuances in data to make more effective and informed policy, operational, and economic decisions is more important than ever. However, improving decisions in a world of constant change will only happen if we create a culture of continuous exploring, learning, and adapting. Only when the learnings gleaned from detailed data can be quickly codified, disseminated, and assimilated will we drive more accurate and more relevant policy and operational decisions.
To evolve our society—that is, to improve welfare, healthcare, housing, education, employment, and the environment—requires a culture of continuous learning. Our ability to evolve our society rests on this simple but overwhelmingly powerful observation:
The economies of learning are more powerful than the economies of scale.
Data is a four-letter word that has enormous transformative potential. It's the superhero of the future. But data without analytics is an empty promise. There is no value in just having data. The value of data is only realized when you apply analytics to uncover the insights that can improve healthcare effectiveness, reduce unplanned operational downtime, decrease customer attrition, increase educational opportunities, reduce operational costs, reduce traffic accidents, improve college retention, reduce deaths associated with cancer, and build winning sports teams. Yes, data and analytics can do all that…and much much more!
The material in this timely book seeks to stitch together my blog and lecture points in a coherent, cohesive and actionable manner that conveys the pragmatic and actionable concepts refined from customer engagements. As the reader, I invite you—nay, urge you—to take what I've learned and build upon it.
Throughout the book, I will challenge the reader to bear in mind: If you want to change the game, change the frame. I encourage you to let go of outdated concepts, and adopt a new mindset about how organizations can leverage data and analytics to derive and drive new sources of value; a mindset that seeks to exploit "The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation."
The book begins with two foundational chapters that I have covered extensively in other books, but the concepts are so fundamental in helping organizations leverage data and analytics to drive their digital transformation that to omit them would leave the book incomplete and of less actionable value. If nothing else, this book seeks to be actionable!
I invite you to grasp hold of the concepts in this book to thrive in the digital future. Applying the knowledge to leverage the economics of data, analytics, and digital transformation to create a culture—a society—that can continuously learn and adapt is how we'll transform our society.
Finally, let's keep learning together because, at the end of the day, we stand on one another's shoulders. If we don't work together to lead social evolution leveraging the economics of data, analytics, and digital transformation, then who will?
